The paucity of morality in everyday talk
Abstract Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4 |
| _version_ | 1827966371516907520 |
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| author | Mohammad Atari Matthias R. Mehl Jesse Graham John M. Doris Norbert Schwarz Aida Mostafazadeh Davani Ali Omrani Brendan Kennedy Elaine Gonzalez Nikki Jafarzadeh Alyzeh Hussain Arineh Mirinjian Annabelle Madden Rhea Bhatia Alexander Burch Allison Harlan David A. Sbarra Charles L. Raison Suzanne A. Moseley Angelina J. Polsinelli Morteza Dehghani |
| author_facet | Mohammad Atari Matthias R. Mehl Jesse Graham John M. Doris Norbert Schwarz Aida Mostafazadeh Davani Ali Omrani Brendan Kennedy Elaine Gonzalez Nikki Jafarzadeh Alyzeh Hussain Arineh Mirinjian Annabelle Madden Rhea Bhatia Alexander Burch Allison Harlan David A. Sbarra Charles L. Raison Suzanne A. Moseley Angelina J. Polsinelli Morteza Dehghani |
| author_sort | Mohammad Atari |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:47:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1c58ec6ec45f4ce5920cf1141ed81485 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:47:53Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-1c58ec6ec45f4ce5920cf1141ed814852023-04-16T11:10:54ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222023-04-0113111210.1038/s41598-023-32711-4The paucity of morality in everyday talkMohammad Atari0Matthias R. Mehl1Jesse Graham2John M. Doris3Norbert Schwarz4Aida Mostafazadeh Davani5Ali Omrani6Brendan Kennedy7Elaine Gonzalez8Nikki Jafarzadeh9Alyzeh Hussain10Arineh Mirinjian11Annabelle Madden12Rhea Bhatia13Alexander Burch14Allison Harlan15David A. Sbarra16Charles L. Raison17Suzanne A. Moseley18Angelina J. Polsinelli19Morteza Dehghani20Department of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of ArizonaDepartment of Management, David Eccles School of Business, University of UtahDyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Johnson College of Business, Cornell UniversityDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Psychology, University of ArizonaDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-MadisonMinnesota Epilepsy GroupDepartment of Neurology, Indiana University School of MedicineDepartment of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaAbstract Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants’ subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4 |
| spellingShingle | Mohammad Atari Matthias R. Mehl Jesse Graham John M. Doris Norbert Schwarz Aida Mostafazadeh Davani Ali Omrani Brendan Kennedy Elaine Gonzalez Nikki Jafarzadeh Alyzeh Hussain Arineh Mirinjian Annabelle Madden Rhea Bhatia Alexander Burch Allison Harlan David A. Sbarra Charles L. Raison Suzanne A. Moseley Angelina J. Polsinelli Morteza Dehghani The paucity of morality in everyday talk Scientific Reports |
| title | The paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| title_full | The paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| title_fullStr | The paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| title_full_unstemmed | The paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| title_short | The paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| title_sort | paucity of morality in everyday talk |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4 |
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